Jill Alexander Essbaum

E P W

What Isn’t Mine

Let us tunnel
Through the rubble,

Through the thrum.
Let us rut through the sum

Of who we were,
Or are,

Or will be in the years to come:
A couple

Of someones
Who used to be in love.

Used to be in love.
Ho. Hum.

These days: Seem to be in hate.
Gypsum, marble, pyrite, slate.

See here. A pit of snakes.
Look there. The rock of your rages.

And I’ m in a cable-cage, slinking down your shaft.
You fondle that hefty What if...? as if

Would-Land

5 am. One-quarter past.
Distant chimes inform me this.

A bell peal knells the mist.
And sunlight’ s

not yet bludgeoning.
But some light gets blood going.

Last night it was snowing
and now

every path’ s a pall.
Though mine the only footfalls

at this hour of awe. Above
hangs a canopy of needle leaf.

Below, the season’ s
mean deceit —

that everything stays
white and clean.

It doesn’ t, of course,
but I wish it. My prayers